A Brief History
On an unknown date in 267, Odaenathus, King of Palmyra, was assassinated along with his son and co-king.
Digging Deeper
Odaenathus’s biographer in the Historia Augusta laments the king’s assassination in the following passage: “Some god, I believe, was angry with the commonwealth, who, after Valerian’s death, was unwilling to preserve Odaenathus alive. For of a surety he, with his wife Zenobia, would have restored not only the East, which he had already brought back to its ancient condition, but also all parts of the whole world everywhere, since he was fierce in warfare and, as most writers relate, ever famous for his memorable hunts; for from his earliest years he expended his sweat, as is the duty of a man, in taking lions and panthers and bears and other beasts of the forest, and always lived in the woods and the mountains, enduring heat and rain and all other hardships which pleasures of hunting entail.”
At the time of Odaenathus’s murder, the Roman Empire was experiencing the Crisis of the Third Century. Not only had the previous Roman emperor Valerian been captured by Sassanids in 260, that same year, various Roman provinces in the West had broken away to form a Gallic Empire. Moreover, Valerian’s successor as emperor, Gallienus, contended with various other usurpers throughout his reign, before his assassination in 268. Not until the reign of Roman Emperor Aurelian from 270 to 275 would most of the Roman Empire be restored under control of a single emperor. Among Aurelian’s successes included the defeat and capture of Zenobia and her Palmyrene Empire in the East.
Prior to the violent death of Odaenathus, he had indeed proven a capable commander in his campaigns against the Persians. His widow subsequently turned the Palmyrene Kingdom into an empire that expanded to include Egypt before her eventual defeat by the forces led by Aurelian. How might history have played out differently had Odaenathus survived into the 270s?
Question for students (and subscribers): Had Odaenathus not been assassinated, would he along with his queen have restored the unity of the then splintered Roman Empire? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Andrade, Nathanael. Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra (Women in Antiquity). Oxford University Press, 2018.
Magie, David, trans. Historia Augusta, Volume III (Loeb Classical Library). Harvard University Press, 2022.
The featured image in this article, The Marriage of Zenobia and Odenatus by Justus van Egmont (1602–1674), is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.
